Fed board questions Gulf fail-safe device's design

A senior official for the maker of the blowout preventer that failed to stop last year's Gulf oil spill said Friday the device hadn't been tested to see if it could cut through a bent drill pipe.

The firm hired by the government to examine the 300-ton device after it was raised from the seafloor concluded the blind shear rams couldn't pinch the well shut by cutting through the drill pipe. That's because the pipe had been knocked off-center. The firm faulted the design of the Cameron-made blowout preventer.

Cameron vice president David McWhorter told a federal investigative panel he couldn't say if the device was designed to cut through a bent drill pipe. He said it wasn't tested for that possibility before the disaster.

"I am not going to hazard an opinion," said McWhorter, who works in Cameron's division that handles engineering and quality for drilling systems.

The testimony wrapped up the seventh series of hearings before the joint U.S. Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement panel, which is investigating the causes of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion off Louisiana last April 20. The blast killed 11 workers and led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The panel is expected to release a preliminary statement within the next week or so. It has been given an extension until July to issue its full report.

In earlier testimony Friday, Ralph Linenberger, a BP consultant who was hired to monitor the blowout preventer examination on behalf of the company, questioned the findings of testing firm Det Norske Veritas. Among other things, he said he did not see evidence that the drill pipe had buckled, as DNV concluded it had.

"It looked fairly straight to me," Linenberger said.

He also said DNV did not conduct any substantive testing that would look at the possibility of maintenance of the blowout preventer being a potential factor in the device's failure.

Transocean owned the rig that exploded and was responsible for maintaining the blowout preventer made by Cameron. BP was leasing the rig from Transocean and owned the undersea well that blew out.

As the one-year anniversary of the disaster approaches, victims of the oil spill continue to raise concerns about the process for paying claims.

On Thursday, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said in a federal court filing that BP continues to violate the federal Oil Pollution Act in the processing and payment of interim, short-term damages resulting from the oil spill. BP appointed Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg to handle those claims, and he has been doing so since August. Feinberg has defended his work, and BP recently agreed to increase the monthly fee it pays Feinberg's law firm.

Hood wants the court to order an independent audit of the claims process.